


Through the Pansies

by Its_real_for_us



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Death, Depression, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Falling In Love, Grief/Mourning, Gryffindor/Slytherin Inter-House Relationships, Heartbreak, Internalized Homophobia, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mystery, POV Pansy Parkinson, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:28:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26773663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Its_real_for_us/pseuds/Its_real_for_us
Summary: Nobody ever told me how to mourn someone I hated. Not a small disliking, a festering splinter that only dug itself deeper and deeper in me, until it becameme. The hurt and hate that stung much longer than those self-inflicted, circular fag burns, that at some point or another, healed. These scars couldn't be erased; they were tattooed on my very heart.And soon, Hermione would hold residency in that cavity too, except it would be far more brillant and entirely less destructive.Or would it?
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley/Blaise Zabini, Hermione Granger/Pansy Parkinson, Ron Weasley/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 60





	1. Lilies in the Garden

I scramble in my sleep-deprived sheets. There are lilies in the pansy garden. I twist, they bud, I turn, they grow. I want this to be all make-believe.

I'm in between dreams of roaring, fire-breathing dances and soft dragons who never even hurt Wrackspurts. I can't seem to notice the utter absurdity of it all. How nothing meshes into reality since _she's_ left.

 _"Do you know lilies are actually the most common funeral flowers?"_ Blaise had said on an August day, so carelessly I couldn't even bear to imagine the differences between his life and mine. I know pain can't be measured. The war had taught me that. I understand the small talk is his only way of showing he cares, but I can't help, for the first time since I met him on a train, I once thought would bring me long away from her, needing to be hugged by him.

 _"I didn't know, actually,"_ I said, looking down at the flowers in my deft fingers. They're completely white, no purple or pink like I've seen with some. _"Thank you,"_ I muttered. It's strange they're white. Death isn't white. Is it? It's dark, no? It's cold, maybe even, for _her_ , I fear lonely.

 _"Are you ready to go?"_ He had gestured his shoulder, a feigned yet true smile upon his lips. Oddly enough, it had been the most comforting of his ministrations up-to-date. I took his hand, needing his warmth, despite his unwillingness to give it to me naturally.

I feel an odd tingling in my stomach. I've wanted Blaise for as long as I could recall. He's everything I'd tried myself for all those years since our first encounter on the Hogwarts Express, _that brought me long away from her._

I should be happy, no? I'd gotten away from her. I'd got closer to him. No matter how much time it took, I could feel the bridging chasm between friendship to lovers close ever-so-slowly.

I study the tingle in the pits of my empty belly. It's poisoning like _she_ always was. It's eating at me. I let it. I don't care right now. I don't care at all. It shows me. It shows me, _she's_ there.

There were lilies in my hands the day of the funeral that are nowhere near as closely distressed as the ones wilted on the bureau beside my bed. The table stained with cherry oak and spills of Tuscan red wine from legless, inebriated-beyond-belief nights I'd told Draco I was fine.

He could be an arse, that mostly boy of a man, but Draco knew just when my reality mixed with my lies, like when my sobriety melded into a fuzzy plethora of clouds I couldn't see through. Bugger, that he was too bent for me. He would've been a good lover. If only, I was a man, and he wasn't the deepest closeted homosexual I'd ever seen.

 _"Are you sure you even want to attend?"_ I had pulled my hand back from Blaise's momentarily. My hands were on fire. My heart was racing. It burned. It ached. Everything inside me howled to be heard.

 _"Of course,"_ I had spat, unable to control my inner instinct that wanted to scream. _Of course I want to attend! Are you insane?_ I couldn't fathom my anger. It seemed so uncalled for.

 _On a train that would bring me long away from her-_ isn't that all I've ever dreamed of? The years leading up to my eleventh birthday that I counted on repeat, the gift being ageing, being closer to leaving home?

Nobody ever told me how to mourn someone I hated. Not a small disliking, a festering splinter that only dug itself deeper and deeper in me, until it became _me_. The hurt and hate that stung much longer than those self-inflicted, circular fag burns, that at some point or another, healed. These scars couldn't be erased; they were tattooed on my very heart.

 _"I'm sorry,"_ Blaise had said. _"I just didn't think you cared."_

 _"I do."_ The words had come out like bile, way before I could even consider controlling them.

 _"I'm here."_ I had felt his fingers squeeze my hands. I should've been happy. _She's_ dead. My mother, she's gone.

I laid on my stomach, forcing the tears to stop pooling in my eyes. There are lilies in the garden in the backyard right outside my sitting room. I can't bring myself to grow pansies where mother once had. I try to repress the memories of her wake, but my mind can't forget. It's been a year since that day.

_"No one expects you to say anything."_

_"But don't they?"_ Blaise hadn't bothered answering. He knew I was right. _"I'm her daughter."_

_"Are you at least ready?"_

_"Yes,"_ I had said. I'm a Pure-Blood. This wasn't some kind of choice. My father was there. I had to make a good impression. _"Remember Pansy, only the good. She was your mother,"_ my father had said.

 _"You'll be okay,"_ Blaise promised.

It doesn't feel like a year since the last time I saw her. Ashen skin, sunken cheeks, overtly done makeup to cover the death that was still so apparent on her visage. How do you mourn a mother you hated? How do you move on from a mum who wasn't ever a mum?

I eyed the wilted lilies, the ones as dead as she. As me. As what I allowed her to make me. She still held so much power over me, even in her demise.

I wanted to run. I wanted to skip and prance in the orange tree fields in Yunnan I'd heard my mother speak of. On the same landscapes she'd grown up on, where she'd been a homeschooled witch in a house with parents who _actually_ loved her.

I would never know what that was like, family who loved. My parents had never shown me true care, even less acceptance, of any kind.

"Get up," I suddenly heard a familiar voice say from across the room. I shifted my gaze, but I already knew who it was. The blonde man, the one nobody truly knew apart very few, smiled at me. "I know what today is."

"Draco-o," I muttered, stretching his name out further than it should go.

"You're daft if you think I'm letting you stay in bed today," he voiced. He'd forever been so genuine. "Actually, you're mad if you think I'm letting you stay in bed any day, here on out, all day long!"

"Did Blaise send you because if-"

"No," Draco laughed. "I sent me." I couldn't help but roll my eyes at that. He was so good at cheering me up when I needed it the most.

"What are you going to bring me into this time around?" Now, it was his turn to glower at me.

"Oh, stop being such a-"

"A what? It's August 7th, I have the right to be-" I stated.

"You do, I'm sorry," Draco uttered. I frowned, thinking of the lilies in the greenhouse garden, and the pansies I tore from their roots one by one the day mum died. "You know, I can understand how you feel. Lucius-father and I-"

I almost wanted to cry hearing him call him by his first name. He'd been forced to after the war, distancing himself from Lucius had been the only way wizards were willing to believe Draco was truly good, that he wasn't a replica of his father. I got up quickly, not caring that I was only wearing underwear. He was my best mate, bent, and I didn't want him to be in pain.

"So, where are we going?" I asked, lunging myself into his arms and hugging him tightly. It only took him seconds before, he too, wrapped his arms around me.

"Potter is filling in for that professional Quidditch tournament against the Holyhead Harpies since one of their players fell sick last minute. I got two of the best tickets for us."

"Potter?" I cocked up an eyebrow, a smirk on my lips.

"Parkinson, enough with the teasing. It's getting old. We're just becoming friends. This whole Auror training makes it hard not to," Draco emphasised. I knew it was more than that, but I decided to say nothing.

Draco left the room as I brusquely put on the first pair of black jeans and the softest black jumper I could find. The scars on my arms and legs called for no other choice of wear. I walked to the door, sighed, and turned to look at my room once more.

_There are lilies in the pansy garden._

_There were lilies in my hands._

_There are lilies on my bureau._

_There are lilies everywhere, but I don't want them there._


	2. Willow Away

I'm off-kilter. I can barely remember what it's like to feel balanced, in harmony with my mind and body. Even my basic kinesthetic abilities, walking without tumbling, my daily runs, the weird Quidditch-like game played on foot Blaise had taught me, were fading from my reach.

I tugged at my sleeves, trudging forward almost drunkenly. _I'm lucky he didn't see them; my scars._ I know what Draco would say, what he'd think. He'd blame it on himself, the inattentive best mate who should've been warier of my suicidal ideation. If you could even call it that.

I'm not sure what the right wording was. I didn't necessarily want to die. I just didn't want to live either, at least not like this.

My heart was ladened with my mother's memory like boughs sagged with cherry blossoms from the country of her origin. Though, they weren't ripe or sweet. I was decadent, _yes_ , with her decedent.

"Pans," I heard my name, but it didn't register quite properly. _He's so sweet, Draco he is. Why- Why did people not see past the facade he played so well? Couldn't they see? Couldn't I?_ "Pans, are you okay?"

Loneliness. Fear. Darkness. _Is this what she felt, my mother? Beautiful, she was._ I couldn't hear him, but Draco must've been full of all the three too. Is that why we'd become closer than ever since the battle? We craved friendship and warmth. Is that why he slowly extended his fingers to feel Harry's fire, the hearth of flames Gryffindor's called their hearts?

Oh, I wanted to feel it. I wanted him to feel it too. It was akin to tumblers of Firewhiskey and swirls of dizzied champagne, but it wasn't bent on self-destruction. It was heat and temperature, and here I was; nothingness—my body as limp as midnight's absence of light, no twinkling stars in sight.

"Pansy," Draco cried. "Pansy, you've got to wake up!" I could hear him, but I couldn't respond. I was frozen.

 _"Why are there only pansies?"_ My little voice had asked, looking out at the garden as my mother dug more holes into the soil. Even at that age, I knew too well to believe it was because of me. _"Why?"_ I had asked again when I received no response.

 _"You mustn't speak, child,"_ my mother had spat, venom spewing from her mouth as it so often did. I hadn't even flinched. I'd expected just that from her.

"Hold on," Draco continued, frantic. "I'm sending out our coordinates! Help is on the way!" I wanted to scream that I was okay, but my mouth wouldn't move. _Immobility of the body._

 _"You need to plant other flowers."_ I had heard my father's voice tell my mother as I hid behind one of our closet doors, watching curiously from the safety of its cover.

 _"I quite like the pansies,"_ she'd said. I'd never heard her voice so innocent-sounding. It had made my hands tremble at my sides.

 _"Willow,"_ he'd said. His voice had been terse and authoritative. She hadn't said another word.

If I could, I would've sighed at the memory, wishing to know more why she'd sounded the way she'd sounded. Why were there only pansies? Why did lilies have to reside there now? And most importantly, why did I seem to care so fervently?

"Do you remember the first day we met?" _The Hogwarts Express, the train that took me long away from her. Yes, I remember._ "You were always so snide, weren't you?"

 _Yes, I was. Am._ I hated the sound of his cries. _Isn't it obvious I'm okay?_ Up until recently, I didn't even know Draco cared for me with the avidity he did.

Yeah, we'd call each other besties, but I thought it was just a Hogwarts thing. Come to find out, it wasn't. Thankfully so, at that. If anything, the Hogwarts' friendship had been the transient thing, because it was nothing in comparison to what we had now.

We could read each other with a single stare. I loved him like the brother I never had, he like his sister. I could never explain how deeply it all it meant to me. The sheer magnitude of it couldn't be confined to the simple words of any language.

"I used to think," he laughed. "It's silly."

I wished I could push him into saying it. Merlin knows I wouldn't let him start a sentence without finishing it, had I been in the right state to speak up. I would've pushed and pushed until he finally gave in.

"I thought you didn't have a heart or something. I-I know, that's horrible," Draco admitted. "I could never say that to you if you were awake right now."

He was right. I had no utter reason to be upset with him. That's what I chose for people to see of me. It only means I played my part well. _Too well._

"Come to think, now, you're one of the most generous people I know. You just needed to be cared for, because you never were prior." _Damn this body, I need the release tears would bring!_ I didn't care if I usually refused to cry in front of others.

_You needed the same, Dray. After all this time, all you needed, was love. You'll be a great Auror. You already are._

Suddenly, without being able to pull back my arm like I usually would in panic, Draco touched my forearm. "I'm afraid to look because I think I already know what I'll find." _Then, don't._

_Here it goes, the blame game._

"Pansy," Draco shuttered, outlining some of my burn marks and cuts with his fingers. I could feel one of his tears fall on my skin now, hot and wet. He didn't need the little warmth he had escaping him any more than it already had. "I know I've been trying to be a better friend, but I'll try even harder. I'll make sure you and Blaise, Blaise and you-"

I knew he knew of my feelings for the wizard. I'd told him countless times, over and over, but it wasn't his responsibility to make Blaise care. If he didn't want me that way, there's nothing Draco or anybody could do.

Blaise only seemed to care when it fit his schedule. I'd tried for years. Maybe it was time to stop. To close my eyes, like I was now, and accept reality.

I couldn't even tell how long I'd been like this, stuck in the paralysis of my own body. I didn't even know what made me like this in the first place.

The hearth called my name. The lilies laughed at the loss of the pansies. My mother's voice telling me I mustn't speak ringed in my ears as my father told her the same.

Was her voice also told it was insignificant? Was she fiddled down to her core?

"You'll be okay," Draco said. "I promise you." _Promises are meant to broken._ "A medi-witch will be here soon. I also owled Blaise and Potter." _Great, more people will know how weak I am..._ "You know, next time you can just tell me you don't want to go to the Quidditch match instead of a fake fainting seance!"

I laughed, and though it was internal, it felt like it was the first true one I'd had since forever. It was so typical of Draco to make something as grave as this a laughing matter. And for just one moment, I swear all of it faded away from my reach, even...

_the lilies in the pansy garden._

**Author's Note:**

> please kudos & comment ♡


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